THE EGYPTIAN SUDAN Thothmes III. Thanks to the devotion of the "Governor of the South," Amen-em-apt, a relief was sculptured on Gebel Dosha, wherein the king is seen making an offering to " Khnemu, the lord of Ab, the dweller in Tu-Jlb, the great god, the lord of Ta-Kenset," to Satet, lady of Tu-ab, and to Anuqet,' Further south, on one of the four remaining pillars of the Temple of Sesi, is sculptured a scene wherein the king appears standing in adoration before Amen-Ra. On the 'bases of the pillars are '* turreted ovals " inscribed with the names of conquered lands and peoples, very few of which are legible." This temple appears to have been founded by Amen-hetep III. Thus, judging by the evidence before us, it seems clear that Seti I. built no forts in the Sudan, and that works which he carried out, about which there can be no doubt whatsoever, stopped at 'Amada. The reason for this is not far to seek. He found that the sources of the gold supply in the Sudan were becoming exhausted, or at least that they did not yield so much as formerly, and he gave his attention to the development of new mines. For at least a thousand years before his time it was well known that there were gold mines in the Eastern Desert between the Nile and the Red Sea, and Seti I.

determined to take possession of them, and to work them systematically as he had worked the emerald mine of Gebel Zabara.

According to a stele of Rameses II., his father, Seti I., sent men into the desert of Wadi 'Ulaki, the entrance to which from the Nile is near Dakka, and they dug a well there one hundred and twenty cubits deep. This well, no doubt, yielded water for several years, but its supply gave out at length, and in the third year of Rameses II. men and asses died of thirst on the road to the mines, because there was no water in it. To Seti I. also belongs the credit of having either cleared out an old well or dug a new one on the old road to Gebel Zabara, and of having dug some new wells near the Temple of Redesiya, which is about forty miles from the Nile. These facts indicate that he was developing the mines in the Bega country, now occupied by the Bisharin Arabs, and that he was less interested in the Sftdn ' See Lepsius, Denkmnler, Abih. iii., Bl. 141. -Ibid.

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